Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Preface: The preface starts with two quotations from the UK Foresight Report on obesity which clearly spells
out the complexity of obesity and as a
result the need for obesity to be tackled through a multi-level and multi-disciplinary approach which must
be adequately funded by central government
and the book argues many times that this simply does not occur. The single largest UK investment
programme on obesity has a budget only a
fraction that of the annual spend of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The preface brings the
reader through the overall book plan
and gives the reader some idea of what to expect by the end of the book

Chapter 1: Ever seen a fat fox.
We share an enormous amount of our genes
with the animal kingdom but, with the
exception of the hand of man, no
other species gets fat and remains fat for life. This chapter explores the
uniqueness of human culture, our highly sophisticated communication system, the
advent of a quasi-religious and mystical approach to modern food and the
phenomenon of human ambivalence to hazards and why that differs between threats
such as Ebola and obesity. It deals
with economic growth and the global nature of obesity and how obesity follows
affluence. It ends with an exploration of the pursuit of happiness and how
obesity prevention programmes must take account of the daily concerns of
ordinary people in their ordinary lives. None of these issues bother the fox.
Obesity is uniquely a human condition.

Chapter 2: Obesity and health - measurements and metrics. Today, obesity is measured across a range of
values for what is termed Body Mass Index (BMI; weight in kilograms divided by
the square of ones height in metres; kg/m2) and can be rapidly calculated using
many Internet based tools. Few people know where this range came from and the
first part of this chapter outlines the historical basis for the widespread
adaptation of BMI as a quick and easy measure of fatness. However, the chapter
does go on to point out that in fact BMI is a crude measure of body fat and
when it is used, it must be recognised as such. A second major part of this
chapter goes back in time to a 40-year-old report of the UK Royal College of
Physicians, which showed that BMI is a poor mark of mortality risk in those
over 50 years of age but is a strong predictor of risk among younger persons.
This is an example of how an aspect of BMI is far more complex that is
popularly portrayed. Finally, we turn to a very recent challenge to the exact
optimal BMI to limit mortality drawing on a large body of new data from leading
epidemiologists. Their argument is that the ideal weight for minimizing
mortality is in fact, that of the present range defining overweight. This
controversy, known today as the obesity paradox, has caused much dissention in
the field of obesity epidemiology. The present books favours a conservative
view pending urgent collaborative effort to resolve this issue

Chapter 3: Human obesity – old and new. This chapter is prompted by the school of
thought, which argues that since obesity is an entirely recent phenomenon, its
cause must also be recent and thus such recent causes must define solutions to
the problem. The chapter rebuts this by going back in history to the
Graeco-Roman era, through the age of renaissance to more modern times to show
that whenever and wherever man became affluent, we had obesity. The chapter
concludes with an examination of actuarial data from the insurance companies in
the 19th century who already had linked the risk of diseases such as
cancer, heart disease, liver disease and diabetes to increased body weight. The
chapter gives evidence to show that obesity was come in waves with surges and
lulls drawing on military based records of such data, back to prior to the US
civil war or to immediate post war Denmark.

Chapter 4: The human food chain – old and new. There is a widespread belief that the diet
of today is very recent in origin in terms of the foods available to us. This
is challenged in this chapter. Six milestones are explored which mark the
evolution of the modern diet: fire, cooking, agriculture, innovation and
invention, Industrialisation and the high street. Sugar, bread, cakes,
biscuits, sausages, lemonade, booze, fish and chips, hamburgers, popcorn and
the like are hundreds of years old. What is new is the high street and with it
the growth of large supermarkets with powerful purchasing power to drive down
food prices together with the mass mechanization of agriculture, food
production storage and distribution. Blaming the modern food supply is popular
but not necessarily always productive. Many everyday foods do not have an
international corporate provenance: fruit, vegetables, salads, meat, poultry,
fish, cheese, bread, oils, yogurt and the like.

Chapter 5: The fashion of culpable calories. According to the media, fed by many very
poorly qualified experts and by some publicity-minded scientists, sugar is now the
downfall of the human race and fat, once the villain, is now seen as the
saviour. All of this is utter nonsense. To begin with, most of the data used in
this debate relies on “associations” as observed using epidemiological data. It
also relies on extreme dietary studies with rats and mice. However, when put to
the acid test of human experimentation, such assertions simply melt away.
Equally this chapter refutes the claim that nutritionists are forever changing
their advice. Minor adjustments have been made as new data emerge but largely,
such advice has remained largely unchanged in 50 years. It is the media hype
and fashion that changes in a cyclical phase.

Chapter 6: The nature versus nurture debate.Modern
biology is dominated by genetics and the search for the genetic basis of many
diseases including obesity. There are some established conditions where the
deletion of a single gene leads to obesity but such conditions are rare. For
most people who are overweight, any role of genetics will feature a multitude
of genes. The most compelling case for a role of genetics in weight gain and
obesity comes from the study of identical and non-identical twins. The former
share an identical genome while the latter does not. Among children, both share
a similar home environment. Geneticists can use twin data to ascribe the
differential contribution of the genetic dimension and the home environment. A
vast body of evidence shows that obesity has a heritability of about 75%. That
means that in an obesity-promoting environment, similar to that which is found
most developed economies, those who go on to develop obesity have a high
genetic propensity to do so. In contrast, those who live in such an environment
and who maintain a normal bodyweight range are genetically protected from
developing obesity. This genetic control of weight might operate at any one of
a multitude of possible control points.

Chapter 7: Regulating food intake - the eyes have it. If we place the focus of the regulation of
food intake in the animal world, we emerge with a swathe of neural networks, metabolic
pathways and candidate brain hormones. Whilst these unquestionably operate in
man, we regulate food intake very differently. In general, and especially at
home, we clean our plates. Thus, we know in advance exactly how much we intend
to eat before we begin our meal.And we
might not wish to continue to dessert but might feel that it would be bad
manners not to accept one’s host’s hospitality. Manners might also deter us
from asking for second helpings. Researchers have shown that we are more likely
to eat familiar foods and by and large we are the only species that express
disgust at other groups dietary habits. We have religious constraints on food
choice and also health constraints such as allergies. We eat at specific times
of day irrespective of our state of hunger. All in all, we normally eat within
cultural constraints and only veer toward animal behaviour when food supplies
significantly diminish.

Chapter 8: Fitness and fatness. According to the WHO, physical inactivity is the 4th leading
cause of death globally, one place ahead of obesity. Physical activity is in
fact the orphan of the bodyweight and health debate. The direct medical costs
of physical inactivity are estimated at $24 billion and the overall medical
costs are estimated to be $ 76 billion per annum. To put that into perspective,
the annual budget for the FBI is just under $9 billion, that of the CIA is
about $44 billion and the Department of Homeland Security spent just $66
billion in 2011. The bottom line is that to be lean and sedentary is much worse
in terms of health than being fat and fit. Physical activity helps to reduce
most of the main adverse effects of obesity: high blood pressure, type 2
diabetes and adverse blood lipid profiles. Physical activity in work has been
shown to fall dramatically with each new labour-saving device. The traditional
US Amish communities, who shun technological inventions, take around 33,000
steps per day as opposed to the average US citizen who takes just over 7,000
steps daily. Therein lies the problem. The solution is obvious: Get moving!

Chapter 9: A miscellany of matters. For every story that evokes a “wow” factor in
the media, there are many that go un-noticed, falling just outside the media
radar. Equally, there are areas, which the media are beginning to pick up on
with varying levels of supporting scientific evidence. This chapter looks at
four such areas. Maternal nutrition
from conception to two years of age (the first 1,000 days) can play a very
large role in shaping adult obesity. It is an area utterly ignored by policy
makers. The Human Rat Race means that families are absorbed in a highly
competitive work environment with high mortgages absorbing almost every cent. Healthy
eating is high on the wish list but time and the need for family peace don’t
always make healthy eating an automatic option. A third area of interest, one
increasingly hitting the headlines is the human gut microflora or in
modern-speak, the “microbiome”. This is an area of remarkable over-hype when
its impact is extended beyond the gut to other areas of the body with quite
incredible views on its power from mental health to gum disease. Finally, there
is the highly appealing but nonetheless mythical notion of food addiction which
scores very highly on the “sugar is evil” agenda but which is utterly lacking
any scientific rigour.

Chapter 10: Obesity; the fears and the phobias. This chapter examines the phenomenon of
eating disorders – anorexia nervosa, bulimia and binge eating disorders. It
looks at the prevalence and the outcomes of such disorders and their treatment
and management. These conditions largely affect teenage females and several
case histories are examined including the experience of Lady Diana and other
celebrities. It also looks at the very widespread stigmatisation of fatness,
which sees fat people as lazy, sloppy, unreliable, dishonest, untrustworthy and
selfish, among many negative attributes. These views are held even by children
and amongst fat children and all streams of health care workers also hold them.
This stigmatisation leads to disadvantage in employment, promotion and job
security. The first step in combating fat stigmatisation is to recognise the
problem and to look beyond body shape into the minds and hearts of the
overweight and obese. Compassion, care and understanding must lie at the heart
of any move to reduce fatness stigmatisation.

Chapter 11: Obesity – politics, players and ploys. Many groups holding disparate views shape
obesity-focused food and nutrition policies. These groups include
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which are frequently single-issue NGOs,
international agencies such as the World Health Organisation, the scientific
community where quite differing views frequently exist, the food industry, the
media, leading scientific journals and politicians. This chapter explores the
acquisition of different viewpoints by these players and examines how they use
data to foster their own viewpoints. Few come out smelling of roses but the
most worrying of these shortcomings is the repeated published reports of the
failure of the WHO to adhere to the highest level of scientific rigour in
formulating what become globally, powerful opinions.

Chapter 12: Weight management – the personal perspective. Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off isn’t.
In fact the 5-year relapse rate for weight re-gain is about 90%. Thus the
present chapter opens with advice on considerations that must be taken into
account before someone makes a commitment to weight loss. Should they pursue a
weight loss goal, this chapter looks at three books written by leading US
academics. The first (Mindless eating) focuses on the food environment and
shows how visual cues can give us feedback as to when to start and to stop
eating. The second (The step diet) outlines how physical activity can
contribute to weight loss and particularly the management of weight loss. The
third (The volumetric diet) explains how we can reduce caloric intake using low
energy dense dishes. All three books build on high quality peer reviewed
research.

Chapter 13: Weight management – the national perspective. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is an
independent think tank on ethics in the biological sciences and this chapter
draws on one of its publications: Public Health – Ethical issues. A key
recommendation of this publication is that public health intervention should
follow a series of intervention steps, which is referred to as the intervention
ladder. As we rise up the ladder, we need increasing evidence at two levels.
Firstly, we need evidence that the intervention is likely to work. Secondly we
need to set in place a series of measures to ensure that the intervention, once
implemented, is successful or otherwise. A tax on fizzy drinks might be
proposed albeit on weak enough evidence. But how would we measure success: a
reduction in the % of consumers of fizzy drinks? : A concomitant reduction in
caloric intake or weight intake? This chapter explores all levels of
intervention and then focuses on governmental investment, particularly,
financial investment.

Chapter 14: The way forward. From time to time, the prestigious journal, The Lancet, publishes a
series of invited papers on a topic, with the direct intention to inform policy
makers. The most recent series of 5 excellent papers is characterised by the absence
of the word “budget”. In this writers view, until governments set out sizable
budgets to finance independent obesity and physical activity agencies, which
are independent of government, not part-owned by a multitude of single issue
NGOs and which are allowed to take a long term view, we might as well whistle
Dixie at the problem. Today’s largely NGO driven national policy issues are
regulatory: Ban, abolish, license, restrict, tax and so on. Such top-down
initiatives may be needed but must be coordinated properly and must be evidence
based. What is largely missing from the agenda is the bottom up approach. Where
comprehensive multi-stakeholder initiatives to reduce particularly childhood
obesity have been tried, they have been found to be successful but only with
one key word dominating this policy approach: investment. Without investment
and without coordination, it is hard to see serious inroads into this huge
problem being made.

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"Ever seen a fat fox ~ Human obesity explored"

About Me

I graduated from University College Dublin in 1971 with an Masters in Agricultural Chemistry, took a PhD at Sydney University in 1976 and joined the University of Southampton Medical School as a lecturer in human nutrition in 1977. In 1984 I returned to Ireland to take up a post at the Department of Clinical Medicine Trinity College Dublin and was appointed as professor of human nutrition. In 2006 I left Trinity and moved to University College Dublin as Director of the UCD Institute of Food and Health. I am a former President of the Nutrition Society and I've served on several EU and UN committees on nutrition and Health. I have published over 350+ peer reviewed scientific papers in Public Health Nutrition and Molecular Nutrition and am principal investigator on several national and EU projects (www.ucd.ie/jingo; www.food4me.org). My popular books are "Something to chew on ~ challenging controversies in human nutrition" and "Ever seen a fat fox: human obesity explored"